Manties in a Twist

by J. A. Rock

  “He’s going to be a wonderful father.” She scratched the corner of her mouth with one long, rounded nail. “Did you hear Cobalt’s closing?”

  I stared at her a few seconds, stunned. Cobalt was one of two dungeons in the city. My friends and I were members of Riddle, the other one, because Cobalt was kind of gross. Dave said it was a place where dreams were carried to the Underworld on a river of tears, but I didn’t think it was that bad. “I heard it might. I didn’t think it seriously would.”

  “Well, it is. The owners are selling.”

  “Jesus. So now you’re gonna be at Riddle all the time?”

  “I won’t have much choice.”

  I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “The guys and I hardly go to clubs anymore.”

  Which sucked, because I actually liked the clubs. Even Cobalt. But Riddle was where Hal had died, so my friends hardly ever wanted to go there anymore, and I’m pretty sure they thought I shouldn’t want to either. Especially ’cause GK and Kel, Riddle’s owners, had let Bill Henson be a member again. Which was kinda creepy—like, Hey, you accidentally strangled someone at our club, but it’s fine, you can still hang out here. And I almost never went to Cobalt because it was where my mom played, and there was nothing more awkward in the world than running into your mom at a dungeon.

  But I missed that scene. I’d had a whole bunch of friends at Riddle, before Hal died. I mean, they were probably still there even now that he was dead, but I wasn’t. I’d had the same issues my friends did with going back: Yeah, it was weird to be in the same room where Hal had been killed. Yeah, it sucked that we might run into Bill or Cinnamon the ponygirl, who’d been the only person in the room with Hal when he’d died, and all of us were still trying to wrap our heads around how she hadn’t noticed. But we had to move on at some point, right?

  We didn’t say much else for a few seconds. Then:

  “Hon?” It was her fucking decepte-tron tone, like, Oh, let me sound so casual when I’m about to say something that’s gonna ruin your day. You should have heard her when she told me she and Dad were separating. Or when she told me about Hal—that was the fucking worst. Because yeah, even though Dave was at Riddle when Hal died, I guess he was too freaked out to call the rest of us right away. So my mom heard about it from some of her scene friends and called me and was all, “Kamen? Hon?” like she was just gonna ask me how to take a screenshot on her phone.

  Except I’d known better, because she always did that fake-casual thing, and because it was late at night, and—this’ll sound weird—I’d been thinking about Hal all day. And sometimes when something big—good or bad—was about to happen to someone I knew, I thought about them a lot just before the thing happened. I wasn’t saying I could predict the future, but I was obsessed with Stephen Hawking and very aware of the changeable nature of space and time, so we had to at least consider the possibility I was tapping into other dimensions where these things had already taken place.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Have you talked to your friend Ricky?”

  I glanced toward the living room, where I’d last seen Ricky Chuy. Ricky was new to kink, and had been the Subs Club’s MVP for a while—he’d helped us with our website, and he’d contributed lots of articles to the Sounding Board and had participated in pretty much every discussion. He was this skinny little guy who looked about twelve. Dave called him the Little Mermaid, ’cause he thought Ricky was super innocent and asked way too many questions. But I figured Ricky was way filthier than he looked. I mean, Miles dressed like Jimmy Carter but liked to be cut with knives, so . . .

  “You mean tonight?”

  “I mean recently.”

  A group of Ryan’s friends came in looking for the brownies. “Hey, Mrs. Pell,” Amanda said, stopping to hug my mom. They took the whole tray back to the living room, one holding each corner, like they were carrying a casket.

  I turned to Mom again. “It’s been a while since I’ve hung out with him. I think he’s with some guy. I told him he could bring the dude with him tonight, but I guess he didn’t want to.”

  She pushed her platinum-blond curls behind her ear. “Yes.” Her expression was strange. She seemed like she wanted to say something more.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me sort of pleading-like. “He seems very happy.”

  “Okay. That’s good, right?”

  “Just keep an eye on him. He’s new, and it’s easy to be . . . taken advantage of.”

  Ohhh. So that’s what this was about. My mom’s first serious play partner had pretty much tricked her into being his sugar mama, then made off with a bunch of her jewelry and credit cards. Now she had a real thing about warning newbies to be careful. “We look out for him.”

  “Good.” Mom made another chip stack in her hand.

  I decided to change the subject. “So what’s Dad coming here for?”

  She picked up a chip. “I think he’s missing you.”

  “Yeah, but he never leaves Oregon. And I told him I’d fly out there as soon as I can get the time off.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” She glanced into the living room. “I haven’t talked to Maya yet. I should go catch her before someone else takes her.” She turned back to me. “Congratulations, sweetie. The place looks beautiful. I like your painting.”

  She headed off in search of Maya, leaving me alone in the kitchen once more.

  Except I didn’t even have time to put a burger on a plate before I heard commotion on the back balcony. I went over to check it out.

  Gould was standing by the deck’s wooden staircase, his arm around Dave, who was holding him up by the waist. He looked pretty drunk, for Gould, and he was glaring at Ryan. The only other people around were a couple of Ryan’s friends out in the yard, who were staring up at the deck, watching. And Ryan was getting pretty loud in terms of, like, “I didn’t mean it like that! It was just a joke.”

  Dave held his other hand up. “It’s okay. It’s fine.” He saw me in the doorway and gave me a sheepish smile. He turned to Gould and jostled him. “You, my friend, have had enough to drink.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Ryan’s face was all red. “I made a joke—”

  Gould stumbled dangerously close to the stairs, jabbing a finger at Ryan. “It’s bad taste. Bad taste, man.”

  Since Gould didn’t usually say much of anything, let alone get openly pissed, I figured whatever’d set him off had to do with Hal. That was the only thing I could think of that would get Gould pistols-at-dawn mad.

  I was right.

  “I was making a joke about—” Ryan shook his head at me. “I don’t know, we were doing BDSM puns. And I said something stupid, like, ‘I already used all my best gags, but if I think of smother one, I’ll throat out there.’” He gave me this look that was possibly defiant. “I wasn’t even thinking about what happened to your friend. I was just thinking, like, gags, smother boxes, breath play, etcetera.”

  “It’s fine.” Dave tightened his hold around Gould’s middle. “It just caught us off guard.”

  But I could tell from Dave’s tone and the way he was eyeing Ryan that it wasn’t fine. Normally I was all for puns. But, yeah, I could totally see how this had blown up. Gould really didn’t do great with reminders about Hal dying. And since he hardly ever got drunk, probably the alcohol was making this ten times worse.

  “How could you not’ve known what you were saying?” Gould demanded, still staring at Ryan. “You know about Hal.”

  “Yes,” Ryan snapped. “I wasn’t thinking. Take it easy.”

  Ryan’s friends were still watching kinda wide-eyed from the yard, and I didn’t see any of the people who would’ve been a real help in this situation: Mom, D, Miles, and Drix . . .

  “Hey.” I wasn’t sure who to reassure first. “Why don’t we all go back in? It’s cool, Ry, they know it was a joke.” I glanced at Gould. “Dude, he really didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Gould was brea
thing hard. He looked into my eyes like maybe I’d betrayed him a little. The weirdest thing was that when I’d heard Ryan’s joke, I’d gotten a little jolt of, Whoa, too soon. But it didn’t feel too soon. Like, the joke didn’t offend me personally. Maybe I should have been upset, but I mostly just felt like, yeah, the world was still allowed to make jokes, even jokes about stuff that wasn’t funny to us anymore.

  Dave helped Gould inside, and I held the door for Ryan, putting a hand on his back as he walked through. He turned to me once the door had swung shut behind us. “I’m sorry. It was stupid.”

  “It’s cool, seriously. They’re just—” I didn’t want to imply my friends were making too big a deal of this, because their feelings were, like, their feelings. But I wanted to make Ryan feel better. “They know you weren’t trying to be a dick. Let’s get back to partying.”

  Around 2 a.m., Ryan and I lay on the couch in the dark, exhausted. The only light came from the streetlights outside and the glowing red switch on the power strip next to the TV. A veggie tray strewn with broccoli remains and random baby carrots sat on the coffee table next to a bunch of open dip containers, and the houseflies were having a field day pooping in our hummus and stuff. Empty beer cans were everywhere, and the empty brownie pan had a pile of plastic spoons in it.

  I blew out a breath, making my lips flap. “That was crazy.”

  “Wild,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t even know some of the people who were here at the end.”

  “Those were friends of my friends.”

  “Well, it was nice of them to bring us Fact or Crap.” I glanced at the game cards littered across the floor.

  Silence. I scratched my crotch. My balls smelled like sweaty bacon, which was a thing I wanted to change with some shower magic. But also I didn’t feel like getting up.

  Ryan had been in a shitty mood since the incident with Dave and Gould, and after a couple more beers he’d come up to me and been like, “God, do they overreact much?” I could tell he wasn’t trying to be mean—just when Ryan felt guilty he got extra snappy. I hadn’t known how to defend my friends without making Ryan feel worse. So I’d given him another beer because alcohol is like a grown-up pacifier.

  Ryan’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “It feels like it’s finally happening.”

  “What?”

  He turned toward me. “Like we were saying the other night. We’re a couple. We have a place, and we host parties, and it’s cool.”

  “I know exactly what you mean!” I could barely contain my excitement. “This is all the stuff I never even thought about. Like, wall art and dishwashers, and now other people come over to our place to do their laundry . . .” I decided not to mention my sweaty bacon balls, ’cause that seemed like it might lose me some adult points. Also I didn’t mention what Dave had said about this place not feeling like me. It did feel like me, just kind of a me I hadn’t known was in there.

  He snuggled against my shoulder. I seriously fucking loved when he snuggled, because he was small and warm like a bunny. Not a well-dressed hare, but like a die-from-cuteness bunny. I was about to give him a noogie when he said, “Amanda asked me if she left some underwear here.”

  I paused mid-noog. “No way. What’d you tell her?”

  “I said no.”

  I snickered and let him go, flopping back against the cushions. “We’re the worst.”

  “I blame you.”

  “Me?”

  “You shouldn’t look so hot in panties.”

  I yawned, bumping my head against his. “We should start having theme parties. I really l—” Another yawn. “I really like dressing up.”

  He shifted. “Would you dress like a woman for theme parties?”

  Whoa. “Depends on the theme.”

  He was silent awhile. “That’s what I love about you.”

  “The cross-dressing?”

  “Just how imaginative you are. I always felt like maybe I had a decent, like— I was kind of creative. But my parents steered me toward noncreative, uh, pursuits. But you’re good at sooo much things.” He punched my chest a few times, lightly.

  “So much things? Do you know English?”

  “So. Much. Things. Kamen.”

  I grabbed his tiny doll hand. Held his arm back so he couldn’t punch me again, and grinned at him through the darkness. He tried to swing with his other hand, but I could feel it coming and caught that one too. I held both his wrists. “Uh-ohhhh.”

  He struggled, laughing. “You’re such a jerk.”

  “What happens when you try to punch Pelletor?”

  He kicked my shin. “You become an asshole.”

  “Ohhh, nope, nope. You get tickled. And you know it.”

  He fell still and watched me, his eyes glinting. “Doooon’t. Don’t you dare.”

  I fake lunged, and he tried to jerk out of my grasp.

  “Kamen. I order you. By the power of Gay-skull . . .”

  Gay-skull was the power invoked by his gay dom alter ego, He-Manacles. And I was Pelletor, his submissive nemesis.

  I pounced and tickled him.

  “No! Noooo!” He brought his legs up onto the couch and braced his feet against my chest. I could only hold on to one wrist, because I was tickling him with the other hand. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, which meant my work here was done.

  I pushed his legs down and trapped his body under mine. Swooped to kiss him. “You have no power here, Gandalf Gay-hame.” We also had Lord of the Rings gay alter egos. And Star Wars. And Party of Five, but we didn’t tell anyone about that.

  “Game, set, point, match,” I declared.

  He shook his head. “There’s no point. It’s just game, set, match.”

  “I like throwing a point in there.”

  He groaned, stretching underneath me. “Maybe I don’t like your imagination.”

  “Yes, you do.” I blew a raspberry on his cheek.

  “Ewww.” He pulled his hand up from between our bodies and wiped his face.

  Most people saw the creative stuff I did as more reason not to take me seriously. Like my music was just part of my goofiness. Ryan was the only one who got how much it meant to me. And, like, maybe I should have told him how much I appreciated that, instead of summoning Pelletor. “Thanks. For what you said.”

  We shifted so we were lying side by side. I held on to him to keep him from falling off the edge of the couch.

  I sighed. “I always thought I wanted to do music as a career, but honestly, I love being a cook. I don’t feel good at so many things. But I’m okay with that.”

  He was silent another few minutes. “My job bores the crap out of me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lots of people hate their jobs. Drix? He quit being a private eye—a private eye—because he wanted to be some kind of vampyre yoga instructor.”

  “And is he happy now?”

  “Yeah, dude. He just got promoted to vampyre king or something.”

  “It’s just frustrating, because my height limits my job prospects.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I can’t go in front of a courtroom.” He gestured to himself. “Nobody would take me seriously. So I have to settle for being a paralegal.”

  “What are you talking about? There’s a million short lawyers.”

  “Like who?”

  “Theodore Boone.”

  “Did you just compare me to Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “But, like, you don’t actually think you can’t be a lawyer ’cause you’re short, right?”

  “I’m not making this stuff up. When I was sixteen, I applied for a job as a server, but they offered me a job as a dishwasher instead. It makes people uncomfortable to see a man so short.”

  I watched the shadows of the flies as they got down with the creamy ranch dip. “That’s mostly in your head, I think. Short guys are everywhere.”

  “You comment on it all the
time. My height.”

  I turned to him again, kinda surprised. “You know I’m just kidding when I say stuff like that, right? I mean, you are short. But I love it.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you get stuffed in a lot of lockers in school?”

  “Nah. People actually really liked me. I think because I was scrappy.”

  “What’d you used to want to be when you were a kid?”

  “An oncologist.”

  “What even is that?”

  “Cancer doctor.”

  “Dude.”

  “My uncle was one, and I liked the word. Then I found out what it would involve, so I wanted to be an artist instead.”

  “An artist? For real?”

  “Yeah, I used to draw a lot when I was little. Picked it up again in college.”

  “That’s awesome. How have you never told me that?”

  “I have some ancient, expensive painting program on my computer. But I never use it.”

  “Then use it. Make me a drawing.”

  He got quiet again. I tried to wrap my head around him feeling insecure about his shortness. He was amazing. I loved the way he moved and talked and yelled at the screen during baseball games and pretended not to watch Elementary when I had it on but knew key plot points when I quizzed him later. I loved his weird infatuation with megalodons. And the panty thing.

  I gave this guy an eight hundred out of ten.

  But clearly he had some confidence issues or something, because that law-school stuff didn’t make sense. How could a dude who loved to argue about shit—and who, like, never let being short get in the way of arguing about shit—think he couldn’t be a lawyer?

  He shoved his elbow into my ribs as he sat up. “For you? I suppose I could.”

  We made a pot of coffee, and he got out his computer and opened the art program. I stood behind him, chugging my coffee like it was goddamn OJ.

  “You can’t watch me while I draw it.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Shoo. Go on.”

  “Fine.” I retreated across the room and picked up my guitar. Played softly and sang a little. Drank a lot of coffee. After about an hour, I looked up. “How’s it coming?”